MK Tibi Attacks 'Jewish Rulers' of Israel

Arab MK erupts during 'unity event', claiming 'discrimination' against Israeli Arabs and refusing to 'play nice' with the government.

By Tova Dvorin

First Publish: 1/26/2014, 10:30 AM

MK Ahmed Tibi

Flash 90

Mk Ahmed Tibi, who made headlines for heckling Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper in the Knesset last week, received a heckling of his own Saturday - in his hometown of Akko (Acre).

Pro-Israel demonstrators met the Israeli Arab MK with cries of "Akko is not Palestine!" and a rendition of the Israeli national anthem, "HaTikva," as he arrived for an event uniting the Jewish and Arab communities in the city Saturday.

"Akko is my city; it belongs to my country and to everyone," Tibi responded, "and your voices will not prevent me from saying so. Akko is suffering because of the Jews ruling over it, and I will state my opinion [on this] everywhere."

"We did not immigrate to Israel," Tibi insisted. "This is our homeland, we are the salt of the earth."

"Let it be clear, I planned to embarrass the Prime Minister of Canada, I know his anti-Arab attitudes ... and I do not accept the rules of the game which say that it is 'not nice' to criticize the government abroad or to foreign visitors," the MK claimed. "This rule does not apply to me. It may not be nice, but I do not want to be nice."

Tibi was met by an angry crowd at the event itself, where he insisted that the starting salary for a Jewish man was 3 times higher than an Arab man of the same age and eligibility, and insisted Arab enlistment into the IDF - which statistics indicate is on the rise - is not the key to equality.

"The concept of 'equality' only applies to a certain type of citizen, because of the country's nationalistic and ethnic roots," Tibi spewed to the crowd. "I suggest we change places for a week, where Jews live in an Israeli Arab neighborhood, and Israeli Arabs live in a Jewish neighborhood - we'll see how long you survive."

"It is unpleasant to be an Israeli Arab in Israel and it is has been even more unpleasant to be an MK in this Knesset and the previous one," Tibi claimed.

Regarding the peace talks, Tibi claimed that the possibility of an agreement had disappeared - and blamed it on Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. "At Davos, Netanyahu showed his true face when he said that he would not agree to uproot any settlements or to evict the Israelis from their outposts. This sentence ends the possibility of [the Palestinian Authority and Israel] reaching an agreement."